Will the Braves get swept in Philly?

[CBAreject]

Three game series starting tomorrow against the sick Phils and the Braves have to worry not about winning the division but about not falling out of the playoffs altogether. They would appear to be in good shape, up 2 losses on each of NL West opponents who are trying to catch them (one of which will win its division). The Phils are the only team in baseball hotter than the Rockies. They scored 4 in the bottom of the 9th to win today. As luck would have it, they draw Hammels, Halladay, and Oswalt for the 3 game series. They are in serious danger of being swept, as we match them with a struggling Jurrjens, an inexperienced Minor, and Hanson (who is as good as any of them when he's on).

Edited September 19, 2010 by CBAreject

[Eddielives]

Three game series starting tomorrow against the sick Phils and the Braves have to worry not about winning the division but about not falling out of the playoffs altogether. They would appear to be in good shape, up 2 losses on each of NL West opponents who are trying to catch them (one of which will win its division). The Phils are the only team in baseball hotter than the Rockies. They scored 4 in the bottom of the 9th to win today. As luck would have it, they draw Hammels, Halladay, and Oswalt for the 3 game series. They are in serious danger of being swept, as we match them with a struggling Jurrjens, an inexperienced Minor, and Hanson (who is as good as any of them when he's on).

I wouldn't be surprised to see us get swept. However, we do have a tendency to play up to our competition at times so it wouldn't surprise me if we swept as well. That's the problem with the Braves. They are too inconsistent this year to predict anything. If I had to make a guess, I would say we barely squeak out a wild card birth this year but ultimately lose to the Phills or Rockies. I think we could beat Cincy or San Fran.

[CBAreject]

I wouldn't be surprised to see us get swept. However, we do have a tendency to play up to our competition at times so it wouldn't surprise me if we swept as well. That's the problem with the Braves. They are too inconsistent this year to predict anything. If I had to make a guess, I would say we barely squeak out a wild card birth this year but ultimately lose to the Phills or Rockies. I think we could beat Cincy or San Fran.

That's a pretty good prediction. The only way i could see the Braves making the World Series is for Philly to win the division and lose a short series to the hot Rockies. Braves could beat the Reds and win a long series with the Rockies because their pitching isn't very good.

[jhay610]

As luck would have it, they draw Hammels, Halladay, and Oswalt for the 3 game series.

That wasn't luck, ole Chollie has had his eye on this series for a while now and he purposely set his rotation so he could fire his three best bullets at us. Cox is Cox, and true to his style, he is going to keep an even keel and not do anything to upset the routine. That is a great strength of his but also a criticism -- that's how you have two rookies starting 2 of the 3 biggest games of the year.

Certainly, the only matchup that looks at all favorable is the Hanson-Oswalt duel. I would consider it a victory to get one out of these three, then take care of business against the Nats and Marlins and shoot for the wild card. If you win 2 of 3 against both those teams you should be in ok shape. Sweeping would be optimal given the Rockies penchant for late season surges. Maybe the last series against the Phillies is meaningless for them and you catch a break in terms of them resting some of their regulars or starting arms, I don't know.

Sure, play to win the division, but the wild card seems more feasible at this point.

[Dexmethylphenidate]

Looks like it's out of reach now.

I don't get why's Hinske not in the lineup against the Phillies? It's not a good idea to rely on McClouth and Ankiel to produce anything. It seems like Hinske the odd man out in the outfield, which is crazy because he have a big part of that run before the allstar break.

After those trade I feel like if the other pitcher contained the 1 thru 5 hitters, they can basically forget about 6 thru 9.

Edited September 23, 2010 by Playa

[Eddielives]

Well we know for sure what the Braves are made of now. They have great pitching but these guys can't produce a run to save their lives. Funny that was the story for most of the Braves 14 year run too.

[CBAreject]

Looks like it's out of reach now.

I don't get why's Hinske not in the lineup against the Phillies? It's not a good idea to rely on McClouth and Ankiel to produce anything. It seems like Hinske the odd man out in the outfield, which is crazy because he have a big part of that run before the allstar break.

After those trade I feel like if the other pitcher contained the 1 thru 5 hitters, they can basically forget about 6 thru 9.

When you're looking to the likes of Ankiel and Hinske for extra offense, you're in bad shape. LF and CF have been ugly for the Braves this year. Ankiel is the most horrific hitting position player I've seen in years.

[DJlaysitup]

Well we know for sure what the Braves are made of now. They have great pitching but these guys can't produce a run to save their lives. Funny that was the story for most of the Braves 14 year run too.

The thing is we DON'T have great pitching at this point. We have good pitching...Philly has great pitching...at least in the 1-2-3 slots. Better than ours. They also have a better hitting team. They are (maybe) the best team in MLB at this point. Their record (post all-star game and once they got healthy) is phenomenal...like 44-15.

[CBAreject]

The thing is we DON'T have great pitching at this point. We have good pitching...Philly has great pitching...at least in the 1-2-3 slots. Better than ours. They also have a better hitting team. They are (maybe) the best team in MLB at this point. Their record (post all-star game and once they got healthy) is phenomenal...like 44-15.

Actually, the 1-2-3 of the Phillies rivals any the Braves trotted out in their 14-year run. The Braves had better all-around staffs--particularly the 1993 team with an incredible 1-4 and the 1998 team with an incredible 1-5 (4th starter won 20 games-Neagle, 5th starter won 18 games - Millwood). If I were trying to win in the playoffs, though, I would take the Phillies 1-3 over any of those. They are all hard-throwing, dominant pitchers with the potential to pitch better in big games and shut you out for 9-innings. The only pitcher the Braves ever had like that was John Smoltz (and maybe Steve Avery), who was by far the best of their big 3 in the post-season for his career. I have long felt that one of the main reasons the Braves only won it all once was that Glavine and Maddux just had a way of giving up 3 runs in 7 innings and losing in the post-season--pitching just well enough to lose.

[WraithSentinel]

Might want to change the topic title to "Will the Braves get swept by the Nationals?"

:help wanted3: :help wanted3:

[Dexmethylphenidate]

It's not good when you can't even win with Hudson on the mound. They're in deep sh*t.

[Eddielives]

What's sad is they made some solid moves to get some bats in here to really solidify their position atop the east and all it's done is go downhill. To top it off, this is how they going out in Bobby's swan song. Way to man up Braves!

[CBAreject]

It's not good when you can't even win with Hudson on the mound. They're in deep sh*t.

Not only did we lose with Hudson on the mound, we lost to a pitcher with a 6+ ERA. That makes at least the 5th time by my count we have been shut down by a starting pitcher with a 6+ ERA in the last 3 weeks. There were 2 games we lost to the Pirates (scored 1 and 0 runs off two bad pitchers), one game with Andrew Miller (1 run) for the Marlins, who got destroyed in his next start by the Phils (and btw, Miller had a 6 ERA in AA for most of the year, too), one game against Kyle Lohse who had a 7+ ERA (actually Hudson lost that one, too), and now one to Zimmerman (1 run) of Nationals. To not only lose to all those crummy pitchers but to get shut down by them in such a short period of time is incredible. It's not like we have been losing to Roy Halladay and Ubaldo Jiminez every night. We're losing to the absolute worst pitchers in the National League. Getting shut down by Andrew Miller who got pounded in AA all year is unconscionable.

[Eddielives]

Braves = not clutch. Way to choke again Braves. Can't blame Wren for not giving Bobby everything he possibly could to have a dramatic final year. The Braves need to seriously consider firing Terry Pendleton. I love TP but someone has to be accountable for the Braves last two season of choking down the stretch and overall pathetic hitting. Maybe Freddie Gonzales will convince Wren to bring in another hitting coach. That is of course if Freddie gets the skipper's job.

[CBAreject]

Braves = not clutch. Way to choke again Braves. Can't blame Wren for not giving Bobby everything he possibly could to have a dramatic final year. The Braves need to seriously consider firing Terry Pendleton. I love TP but someone has to be accountable for the Braves last two season of choking down the stretch and overall pathetic hitting. Maybe Freddie Gonzales will convince Wren to bring in another hitting coach. That is of course if Freddie gets the skipper's job.

The tough part about TP getting fired (and I do hope he does) is that the Braves have technically scored the 4th most runs in the NL. So, superficially, it appears they have a very good offense. They have a way of piling on runs in blow outs and then failing to manufacture runs in the close ones. They win 16-5 but they will lose the 2-1 more often than not. If anyone read my post on Bobby Cox (measuring his value), you might argue that our consistent underachievement in actual record compared to Expected W-L over the last 5 years has coincided with TP's tenure as the hitting coach.

The Braves are 20-22 in 1-run games this year. The Phillies are 29-15. And we have a substantially better bullpen. Our offense just can't push a run across when it matters.

Edited September 27, 2010 by CBAreject

[AHF]

Hard to believe we are getting swept again. Ugh.

[CBAreject]

Hard to believe we are getting swept again. Ugh.

People will say "the Phils are just so much better a team", but they're not so much better they should sweep 6 games. In the first game of each series, Brandon Beachy had pitched us to a tie and we made a huge error to put the Phils in front. There's going to be a lot of complaining about the offense when we miss the playoffs, but this defense has been the worst I've ever seen in my life as a Braves fan. They don't just make errors, though. They make critical, costly errors when the game is on the line. There was a stretch where AGon made 4 errors in roughly a month that gave the other team the lead in the 8th inning or later. He doesn't make many, either.

Choking and missing the playoffs would really complete Bobby's career well, and would be totally expected, continuing the trend of earlier and earlier chokes:

Early 90's: choke in WS

Late 90's: choke in NLCS

Early 2000's: choke in NLDS

2009-10: choke at end of regular season

[lethalweapon3]

Braves:Phillies::Hawks:Magic?

~lw3

[Eddielives]

Braves:Phillies::Hawks:Magic?

~lw3

I don't know about that comparison. The hawks overachieve as far as making it to the playoffs and get exposed for their lack of chemistry and overall talent. The Braves are definitely way underachieving for the talent they have. They're just plain sucking with the bats and the defense is atrocious.

[Eddielives]

Well as I predicted they just got their foot in the door to make it to the playoffs. Do they have a chance against San Fran? Actually, I think they do. But Philly is waiting to crush the winner anyway so what does it matter.